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Former COO of Moonbirds releases new project Flux, which "crashes": Investment transparency is questioned and multiple investors collectively withdraw.

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Ryan Carson's controversial approach to maximizing profits through various means has been a topic of debate.

Original Title: "<前 Moonbirds COO 新作 Flux「翻车」：未完成融资却炒作宣发，多名投资者集体退出>"

Original Author: Nancy, PANews

After the blue-chip NFT project Moonbirds became popular, not only did the price of the minted NFTs skyrocket, but it also increased the fame of the behind-the-scenes team members. Recently, former Moonbirds COO Ryan Carson announced the launch of a new Web3 project called Flux. This news immediately attracted widespread attention, but due to the project's premature disclosure of the initial investor list before completing fundraising, it sparked controversy over transparency issues in its investment, leading to several investors declaring their withdrawal.

Investment transparency is being questioned, and multiple investors are withdrawing one after another

On February 4th, Ryan Carson announced on Twitter that he will launch a new Web3 project called "Flux" and revealed initial investors, including well-known NFT collector gmoney, 9GAG founder 9gagceo, VeeFriends founder Gary Vaynerchuk, AvaStars founder j1mmy.eth, Pudgy Penguins CEO Luca Netz, WhatStrending founder Shira Lazar, Pio Vincenzo, Vayner Media co-founder AJ Vaynerchuk, J. Fall Group CEO Jeremy Fall, Dr. Doom, KOL NFTNick, Devotion founder andr3w, lib, and NFT collector Todd Kramer. The project's partners include Immutable, Blur, Ava Labs, and others.

前 Moonbirds COO 新作 Flux「翻车」：投资透明度被质疑，多名投资者集体退出

According to Ryan Carson, he plans to raise $10 million for Flux through 100 investors, with a minimum investment standard of $160,000. However, a user immediately questioned the transparency of Flux's investment and revealed that the requirements of the first 21 investors were far below the minimum requirement of $160,000.

While Ryan Carson announced this investment list full of weight before the completion of the financing amount, it will inevitably cause market Fomo sentiment and attract more financing. However, this also leads to misunderstandings about Flux's investment standards, whether it requires a certain reputation and a minimum of $160,000. Once the remaining 70 investors follow this standard, Flux will raise far more than $10 million in financing.

Regarding this, Ryan Carson responded that each current investor has committed to investing between $10,000 and $160,000. As the project is raising $10 million to $16 million and legal restrictions limit the number of investors to 100, this means the minimum investment is $160,000. However, a standard practice in fundraising is to attract a small number of investors with smaller investment amounts early on, and then increase the minimum investment amount. Therefore, Ryan Carson admitted that he first offered a $10,000 investment amount to a few friends and quickly received funding commitments.

Regarding Ryan Carson's inconsistent words and deeds and his use of publicity stunts to hype up the project, Luca Netz, gmoney.9 dcc.eth, j 1 mmy.eth, Shira Lazar, AJ Vaynerchuk and others have announced their withdrawal from Flux investment and expressed their dissatisfaction. Luca Netz stated, "For the sake of transparency, I have not signed anything or funded anything. I thought I was just helping people in this field and maintaining friendly relations. I don't know the details very well, but I have made it clear to Ryan that I do not want to participate in this project."

gmoney.9 dcc.eth

represents that Ryan did admit to him that the minimum requirement for other investors is $160,000, which was his negligence. It is common to promote through PR after fundraising is completed, but what is different is that these lists were released and hyped before the fund was raised. "I am uncomfortable with the way this announcement was made and the fundraising strategy before the fundraising was completed, so I no longer commit to this transaction. I wish Ryan all the best and hope he succeeds." In addition, j 1 mmy.eth also stated that after carefully listening to Ryan Carson and everyone else's opinions, he decided not to continue investing in Flux. As a result, Ryan Carson has now deleted related promotional tweets and closed the Flux official website.

前 Moonbirds COO 新作 Flux「翻车」：投资透明度被质疑，多名投资者集体退出

In addition, Flux's Flux Genesis Pass claims to adopt a script similar to PROOF, and the rights of the two routes are almost the same, which also makes the project highly questionable. Of course, Flux attempts to play the role of an "incubator" to create its own characteristics. While providing investors with 7% equity, it will launch a certain number of projects every year until the tenth year, a total of 1000. In the crypto community, this is undoubtedly a "flywheel of junk projects." In response, Moonbirds and PROOF founder Kevin Rose responded that Ryan Carson did not create the "script" for PROOF, but was hired after the community was launched.

Personal controversy, severe losses in NFT fund

Before becoming the former Chief Operating Officer of Moonbirds and co-founder of PROOF, Ryan Carson was the founder of three companies: DropSend (acquired in 2008), Carsonified (acquired in 2011), and Treehouse Island (acquired in December 2021). However, Ryan Carson's multiple entrepreneurial ventures seem to have a controversial history. In addition to causing controversy due to multiple changes in management policies, Ryan Carson dismissed nearly 90% of his employees without paying severance when Treehouse was acquired.

And Ryan Carson was able to join PROOF not only because of his long acquaintance with Kevin Rose, but also because he saw the potential of the project after purchasing 1 PROOF NFT and applied to join as COO. To show his sincerity, Ryan Carson also purchased another PROOF NFT and obtained 1% of PROOF Holdings company shares during his tenure at PROOF.

And Ryan Carson's multiple actions during his tenure at Moonbirds have also caused community outrage. On the first day of Moonbirds' release, Ryan Carson purchased a large number of rare Moonbirds at a lower price on the secondary market, which was questioned by the public as insider trading. He responded that he did not violate any rules in purchasing rare Moonbirds NFTs, but waited a long time to buy them (Proof allows minting after 3 hours and 57 minutes and public minting after 2 hours and 57 minutes), and did not buy many.

Not only that, Ryan Carson also announced his departure from Moonbirds and established a new fund, 121 G, in April 2022. This news also caused FUD in the community and led to a drop in Moonbirds' price. The reason behind Ryan Carson's departure from Moonbirds may be due to conflicting interests, as he revealed that Moonbirds did not bring him any profits on any projects. However, Ryan Carson also revealed that the launch of the 121 G fund was approved by Kevin, on the condition that the fund does not have any special access to Moonbirds' permission list and has a zero-solicitation proof membership policy.

Later, Ryan Carson's reputation was restored due to the purchase of many Moonbirds by the 121 G Fund through ramping behavior, but during the official launch of the 121 G Fund, Ryan Carson also exposed his decision-making variability by repeatedly lowering the minimum subscription price for investors, from the initial $1 million to $10,000.

As a professional NFT fund, 121 G Fund aims to ensure participation in future popular NFT projects, customize purchase and holding strategies through cutting-edge information, and purchase a certain proportion of blue-chip NFTs. In addition, the fund is a 506(c) rolling fund, which requires a minimum investment of 25 Ethereum per quarter and at least 100 Ethereum per year. Although 121 G Fund received investment commitments of over 14,000 Ethereum (about $40 million) shortly after its announcement, its market performance is not optimistic, which is of course related to the overall bearish market.

前 Moonbirds COO 新作 Flux「翻车」：投资透明度被质疑，多名投资者集体退出

According to the 121 G Fund's official website, the Q4 2022 investment portfolio includes Moonbirds, Tableland, Proof, MPL, Tigerbob, and Admit One. These projects have all experienced varying degrees of decline, such as Moonbirds' current price dropping over 73.5% from its highest point in May, and Tableland dropping over 61.7% from its highest point in August. It is worth mentioning that the official @0x 95 address only holds 8 low-value NFTs, which has raised questions from the community.

From this perspective, whether it is Flux or previous entrepreneurial projects, Ryan Carson has always been controversial for maximizing profits in various ways. However, compared to using investment hype to grab attention and obtain higher shares, empowering NFT projects with down-to-earth efforts is the secret to gaining user favor and recognition.